That was even before Bard absorbed a shelling against St. Louison Thursday. The awkwardness of a rain delay handed thehard-throwing righty an easy excuse, but the fact remains thatoutings like that one can't become a habit.

And even if Bard is the No. 4 starter, Valentine and the Red Soxhave decisions to make. Three candidates remain for the No. 5 job -Alfredo Aceves, Felix Doubront and Vicente Padilla.

"The decisions are definitely far from over," assistant generalmanager Mike Hazen said. "We're only 10 days into games. ... We'regoing to keep trying to stretch out as many guys as possible, Ithink."

When might those decisions be made? Not anytime soon.

"I don't have a favorite in the clubhouse or any of that stuff,"Valentine said. "I'm trying to see what it looks like and keep asopen mind as possible in making those decisions. How long will itplay out? The games and the innings will dictate that. It's notnow; that's for sure."

Aceves pitched impressively against the St. Louis Cardinals onThursday, yielding one run on three hits in four innings, strikingout four and not walking anyone.

His strong effort came two days after Doubront threw four stronginnings of his own against the Yankees.

Padilla appears to be trailing the pack. He simply isn't gettingstarts. He threw three no-hit innings against the Yankees onTuesday night, only one of which came against amajor-league-caliber lineup, and he's scheduled to piggy-backbehind Buchholz on Sunday.

Bad timing

Some might wonder if Bard should go back to pitching in reliefafter a rough 2 2/3 innings against St. Louis on Thursday.

Part of the problem for Bard seemed to be that the appearancefelt far too much like pitching in relief.

Valentine had Aceves start against the Cardinals and slottedBard's four innings later in the game. The righty spent the firstfew innings - like he's done for his entire major-league careerthus far - watching from the bullpen. A rain delay midway throughhis second hitter then sidelined him for a half-hour, furtherthrowing off his routine.

"I've done it many times before, and it's not something thatshould affect me," he said. "But when you haven't done it in awhile, warming up, the sky is getting dark, and you knowsomething's going to happen, so you don't get that same adrenalinerush you would when you know you're about to get going."

The first pitch Bard threw coming out of the rain delay wasblasted over the right-field fence. It didn't get any better fromthere. He wound up giving up seven runs - walking four hitters inthe process - before Valentine came out to get him.

He zigged, they zagged

Carlos Beltran said he gave the Red Sox every opportunity to bidfor his services this winter.

The time frame Beltran had in mind just didn't line up with whatthe Red Sox were doing at the time. When the St. Louis Cardinalsmade him an offer, he jumped on it.

"We talked a little bit, and they had interest," Beltran saidafter the Cardinals' win over the Red Sox at JetBlue Park onThursday. "They were trying to get something done first with David(Ortiz). At the end of the day, I wasn't going to wait until theygot that done."

As it turned out, there's next to no chance the finances wouldhave worked out. Beltran signed a two-year deal with St. Louisworth $26 million. Once Ortiz accepted salary arbitration - asevidenced by the Marco Scutaro trade - the Red Sox were too closeto their internal budget to spend lavishly on a player likeBeltran.

Crawford on mend

No specific timetable has been laid out, but Carl Crawford ispoised to take the next significant step toward getting into gamesthis spring.

Crawford underwent surgery in his left wrist in January. Asetback suffered 10 days ago all but eliminated any chance that hecould be on the roster when the season begins.

On and on it goes

The Theo Epstein compensation saga is almost at an end.

The Red Sox on Thursday received Single-A righty Aaron Kurczfrom the Chicago Cubs, the player to be named later in the ChrisCarpenter transaction announced just after the start of springtraining in February. The Red Sox still have to send their ownplayer to be named later to the Cubs.

Kurcz had a 3.28 ERA in 82 1/3 innings for Single-A Sarasotalast year - a 3.72 ERA in 12 starts and a 2.72 ERA in 20 reliefappearances. He struck out 49 and walked 12 in 36 1/3 innings outof the bullpen.

bmacpherson@providencejournal.com

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